<p>There is enormous variance among state flagships. There’s a lot I don’t like about the US News rankings, but in some ways the raw scores that determine those rankings are more revealing than the rankings themselves. Here is a list of public flagships and quasi-flagships by US News raw scores, on a 100-point scale in which Harvard and Princeton get 100 and Yale gets 99. (I’ve added a few other high-end privates for comparison purposes). The highest-rated public university is UC Berkeley at 79. UCLA, UVA, Michigan, and UNC-Chapel Hill are clustered near that level. From there it’s a pretty steep drop-off.</p>
<p>US News raw score: university</p>
<p>100: Harvard, Princeton
99: Yale
95: Columbia
94: Stanford
93: Duke
92: Dartmouth
91: Northwestern
87: Brown, Cornell
84: Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt
79: UC Berkeley, Georgetown
78: Carnegie Mellon
77: UCLA, USC, UVA
75: Tufts
74: Michigan
73: UNC Chapel Hill
69: William and Mary
67: Georgia Tech
64: Wisconsin
62: Penn State, Illinois, Texas, U Washington
60: Florida
59: Ohio State
58: U Maryland, Pitt
57: UConn, Georgia
56: Purdue, Texas A&M
55: Clemson, Rutgers, Minnesota
54: Michigan State, Iowa, VaTech
53: UDel
52: Alabama
51: Indiana
50: Auburn, SUNY Binghamton
49: SUNY Stony Brook, U Vermont
48: Colorado, UMass-Amherst, Mizzou
47: Iowa State, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee
46: NC State, SUNY Buffalo, U New Hampshire
44: Oregon, South Carolina
43: Arizona
42: Kentucky, Utah, Washington State
40: LSU, Arkansas
39: Arizona State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State
38: University of Rhode Island
37: University of Mississippi
35: U Hawaii-Manoa, Maine, Wyoming
34: Mississippi State
33: U Idaho, West Virginia
32: North Dakota
30: New Mexico
29: North Dakota State
28: Montana State, Nevada-Reno
27: South Dakota, South Dakota State, Montana</p>
<p>I happen to think the US News ranking methodology is profoundly biased against public institutions, inter alia because it favors a high cost-per-student model while public universities aim to achieve scale efficiencies that reduce the cost per student. If a public university leverages its huge employee pool to negotiate better employee health insurance rates, that counts as lower faculty compensation in Bob Morse’s world, and the school is punished in the US News ranking. Moreover, the ranking doesn’t recognize that the mission of elite private schools and public universities is just different; the elite privates seek only to educate a tiny handful of elite students and are rewarded for doing so, while the publics have an obligation to educate a larger number of students across a broader spectrum of capabilities and are punished in the rankings for doing so. Consequently, while there are more 2100-plus SAT scorers at a UC Berkeley or a Michigan than at almost any private, the public universities will also take a large number of sub-2100 students and are punished in the rankings for doing so.</p>
<p>With those caveats, though, it is interesting to compare public flagships on the dimensions US News values. And on those dimensions, for whatever they’re worth, it’s pretty clear that the “Big Five” public flagships–UC Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, Michigan, and UNC-Chapel Hill–stand head and shoulders above other public flagships. In fact, by my rough count in at least 40 states the public flagship stands farther from UC Berkeley in Bob Morse’s esteem than UC Berkeley stands from Harvard. </p>
<p>That’s high variance.</p>